Every purple martin season I make some kind of changes to my colony. I may add housing, replace housing or modify existing gourds racks and houses. On occasion I really get ambitious and make MANY changes to my colony. Any changes I make are accepted by my returning martins.
In 2013, my colony consisted of 22 housing systems including houses and gourd racks for a total of 392 cavities. I used both two inch square and three inch square aluminum poles and all housing systems were raised/lowered either by rope and pulley or winch. All my houses were aluminum and all my gourds plastic. I used Troyer Horizontals, Troyer Verticals, Excluders and Super Gourds.
I had been thinking about reducing the number of housing systems and available cavities. I wanted to consolidate many of my smaller gourd racks on two inch square poles into fewer larger systems on three inch square ones. I also wanted to replace all my rope and pulley systems with winches.
For 2014, I have made significant modifications to my current colony and a LOT of work was involved in getting everything ready! I still need to build a HUGE number of pre-nests from pine needles! Here are the changes for 2014:
All my gourd racks/multi-purpose poles on two inch square aluminum poles have been taken down and replaced with larger racks on three inch diameter square ones. This means 15 “old” systems have been replaced with six new ones. The new ones include a Gemini and five K24 gourd racks. A new 28 compartment Trendsetter has replaced a multi-purpose pole system; the Trendsetter is on a two inch square steel pole and appears stronger than a comparable aluminum one. My total number of housing systems decreased from 22 to 14: three houses and 11 gourd racks. The number of cavities went from 392 to 352 for a reduction of 40. There are now 52 house compartments in three Trendsetter aluminum houses: two 12 room houses and one 28 compartment system. There are 300 plastic gourds: Troyer Horizontals with cling plates, Troyer Horizontals with tunnels/porches, Troyer Verticals, Super Gourds, and Excluders. All poles except two are three inch square aluminum; one old gourd rack is on a two and half inch square aluminum pole and I decided to keep it and the new Trendsetter is on a two inch square steel pole. All housing is NO more than 14 feet in height. In my open location height of the housing is almost a non-issue and the martins readily nest in gourds that are no more than seven or eight feet off the ground. The higher the housing is the greater the chances for it to blow down during violent wind storms.
There are no more rope and pulley raising/lowering systems and all housing now has brake winches. Though I have no big problems using rope and pulley systems, I really prefer a winch, particularly when I am lowering systems due to approaching inclement weather. And some of my previous gourds with 16 plastic gourds were a little heavy when raising the rack with a rope and pulley.
I have also replaced all my old cane pole perches with white fiberglass rods. My good friend Robert Jernigan had told me about the fiberglass rods so I decided to check them out on the Internet. I ordered a bunch of six foot long fiberglass rods with a 3/8 inch diameter. These rods look good on the racks and Trendsetters and are stronger and more durable than the natural cane poles. I have enjoyed using the cane pole perches and they have worked well, but I wanted something that would last longer and blend in better with my racks/houses. I attached the fiberglass rods with plastic zip ties.
Here are some photos of my 2014 martin colony with the housing systems lowered. I am really pleased with the new gourd racks and 28-compartment Trendsetter and I like the overall look of everything. All that work cleaning off my plastic gourds has paid off with nice white gourds! Many of these gourds had luxurious gardens of mold/mildew growing on their outer surfaces! The only raised system is one of my 12 room Trendsetters with four nest box traps attached to it. This is for “early starlings to check in but not check out alive!” Not many starlings this season so far and only four have met the Grim Reaper in my yard; seven have “bit the dust” over at Bob’s colony next door. I still need to add the gourds and fiberglass rods to this Trendsetter. I will start raising gourd racks any day now. Also all the new systems do not have net traps attached yet to thwart rat snakes. I will install the netting soon.
This photo shows one section of my martin colony. Several smaller racks on two inch square poles and a multi-purpose pole are now gone and a new Gemini and K-24 gourd racks are the replacements. You can see “carcasses” of the old ground stakes for the two inch square poles still in my colony! I need to eventually get these OUT of my yard! I did notice that most of the old iron ground stakes were rusting while my aluminum stakes were still in pretty good shape. I fill my stakes with concrete.
This photo shows another section of my martin colony. Again, smaller gourd racks and a multi-purpose pole have been replaced with K-24 gourd racks and a 28 compartment Trendsetter.
This photo shows my total colony. With the elimination of many of the smaller racks and substituting fewer larger ones, my colony site does seem a little less cluttered. I like this arrangement better.
This photo shows my old 36 gourd Super System with clean white gourds! This rack is only about 13 feet high and the lowest gourds are around seven feet off the ground. This rack has a diverse array of gourd styles: Troyer Horizontal with tunnel/porch, Troyer Horizontal with cling plate, Troyer Vertical with tunnel/porch, and Excluder Gourd. In 2013, there were 34 pairs of martin in this system.
This photo shows one of my 12 room Trendsetters with six Troyer Horizontals with cling plates, two Troyer Verticals and two Super Gourds attached to the hub. I replaced the old cane pole perches with the new six foot long white fiberglass rods. These rods blend better with the white Trendsetter and gourds and will no doubt last longer than the cane perches.
This photo shows one of my new K-24 gourd racks. You can see the white fiberglass rods attached to the gourd arms via zip ties.
This photo shows a new K-24 gourd rack, the new Gemini and one of my Trendsetters.
This photo shows many of my old two inch square aluminum poles on the ground. I gave away some of the racks associated with these poles. I will soon be transferring all those net traps to my new housing systems.
Steve
